Make Your Own Easy Bake Oven Refill Mixes for Just $0.12 Each!!!

Learn how to make your own Easy Bake Oven mixes from boxed cake mix… Yields 33 refills for under $4, making them just $0.12 each!

Easy Bake Oven — To Buy Or Not To Buy?

My oldest daughter turned 10 a few months ago — that precarious age where she’s on the cusp of leaving childish things behind but isn’t quite ready to give it all up. Her Christmas wish list was an interesting study in this, filled with clothing, a Beats Pill, a Vera Bradley purse, earrings, etc… but one item stood out:

I have to say I was torn… Would she actually use it? Or was it just a total waste of money? I put an Easy Bake Ultimate Oven in my Amazon cart but continued to debate purchasing for days.

We had one of these toys several years ago, but it was promptly donated when my kids quickly grew frustrated with how long it took to bake one teeny cake that was little more than a bite for each. But being the lone toy in a sea of preteen dreams, I finally decided, what could it hurt?

And what do you know?! She has used it near daily since opening it Christmas morning. She loves to make special cakes for everyone in the family, and I love to watch quietly from afar, as she carefully stacks layers of various cake flavors, frosting each to perfection, and topping them off with her favorite rainbow sprinkles. I’m so glad that I caved, because I would have missed out on so much joy.

The down side to it? Those gosh darn Easy Bake Oven mixes are ridiculously expensive! I mean, we’re talking $6.99 for a refill pack that makes just 2 cakes. Whoa, I would have dropped hundreds on these things by now!!! But I got smart and figured out a way to make our own homemade Easy Bake Oven mixes…

Make Your Own Easy Bake Oven Mixes

It took some research and a lot of trial and error, but my daughter and I hit upon just the right formula for using store-bought cake mixes to make our own Easy Bake Oven refills. We tested several brands in the process, and while the method I’m going to share worked reasonably well for all brands, we both agreed that the Duncan Hines Signature cake mixes consistently produced the best results.

Given that a box of this cake mix retails for around $1.28 at Walmart and we were able to get about 11 Easy Bake Oven mixes per box, you can easily see how the savings add up. That breaks down to just $0.12 per mix versus $3.50 for a single Easy Bake Oven refill!!!

I picked up three boxes of Duncan Hines Signature cake mix, one each of French Vanilla, Dark Chocolate Fudge, and Strawberry Supreme, which is enough to make 33 Easy Bake Oven mixes in under 15 minutes. In addition, I recommend picking up a can of Pam Baking Spray to prepare the pan, a couple of tubs of white frosting, and some rainbow sprinkles.

I also found this adorable Mainstays Mini Turner and matching spatula that are the perfect size for smaller hands, so I grabbed them, as well.

Setting Expectations For Easy Bake Oven Recipes

Before I share how to make your own refill mixes, I want to be very clear about what you should expect from them. Gourmet cakes? No. A budget-friendly mix that will allow your child to bake a perfectly edible and tasty (enough) cake all on his or her own? Yes!

Eggs and oil are not necessary to attain this goal. A little smear of frosting can up the tastiness factor, but I’ve eaten many, many plain cakes without complaint. :) Also, it’s important to keep in mind that this is a child’s toy, not a calibrated oven. The baking time may need to be adjusted slightly to achieve desired results.

With this goal in mind, my girls have been able to enjoy using their Easy Bake Oven whenever they want without emptying my wallet. They’ve been totally thrilled with these Easy Bake Oven mixes and have enjoyed hours upon hours of baking fun with them! And this is my intent in sharing these Easy Bake Oven recipes with you.

How To Make Easy Bake Oven Mixes

Making your own Easy Bake Oven mixes is super simple when you follow these instructions. I recommend these Ziploc Snack Bags, because they’re the perfect size to hold each mix. Label each with these simple Easy Bake Oven mix labels that are designed to print on standard Avery 5160 address labels. Of course, in a pinch, you could just print them on regular paper and tape them on.

NEW: By popular request, I’ve added another set of printable labels for use with the Duncan Hines Signature Lemon Supreme, Orange Supreme, and Red Velvet cake mixes! These also work with the Avery 5160 address labels and can be downloaded here.

Ingredients

Instructions

For the mixes:

Sift each cake mix into a large bowl. There will be chunks of dried strawberries in the Strawberry Supreme cake mix -- these can just be discarded.

Measure each mix into precise 1/4 cup portions by spooning the mix into a 1/4 cup measuring cup, and then leveling it off with a knife. Place each portion in a Ziploc snack bag and label (find printable labels here and here). You should end up with about 11 refills per box of cake mix.

A Few Tips For Best Results

Measure the mixes precisely using the method described in the “recipe”. If you pack the mix into the measuring cup too densely, your cake will rise too high and stick to the top of the inside of your Easy Bake Oven.

DO NOT pre-mix the cake batter while waiting for the Easy Bake Oven to preheat. It will rise too high and stick to the inside of the oven. Mix it up after preparing your pan and place it in the oven right away.

For a fun change of pace, shake decorating sprinkles on top of the prepared batter once it’s spread in the cake pan. This creates a “funfetti” style cake without muddling the bright colors!

So there you have it — 33 Easy Bake Oven refill mixes for under $4! I think these would be an awesome gift idea for any little girl that loves to bake with her Easy Bake Oven. Just package up the mixes with a can of the baking spray, frosting, and sprinkles. Toss in a super cute mini turner and spatula, and you’ve got hours and hours of baking fun for well under $20 (not including the oven, of course).

I’d love to see how your Easy Bake Oven refills turn out… Tag me @Unsophisticook on Instagram or use the hashtag #Unsophisticook so I can check it out. Enjoy!

Reader Interactions

Comments

Hi Sandra! The good news is I just found my notes for making cookies in the Easy Bake Oven. The bad news is I somehow didn’t write down what brand I tested it with… If you want to try it with whatever brand you have, what I have is one teaspoon of water mixed with 1/4 cup cookie mix, form into round patties, and bake for 6 minutes. I’m going to play around with it in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, please let me know how yours turn out!

Thank you so much for doing all the leg work for these recipes and sharing it with others. Santa brought my daughter an EBO for Christmas and I was dreading having to shell out all that money for mixes! This is perfect!

Hi Karen! Wanted to let you know that I just found my notes for making cookies in the Easy Bake Oven. Unfortunately, I somehow didn’t write down what brand I tested it with… If you want to try it, what I have is one teaspoon of water mixed with 1/4 cup cookie mix, form into round patties, and bake for 6 minutes. I’m going to play around with it in the next few weeks, but if you give it a try, please let me know how they turn out!

Hi Amanda! Yes, you can certainly use any brand of boxed cake mix. I just found the Duncan Hines Signature mixes provide the most consistent results. I checked out the recall, and there are only four varieties included, all of which are Classic mixes (which are different).

Duncan Hines Classic White Cake mix with best if used by dates of March 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, and 13, 2019 and the UPC code 644209307500.

Duncan Hines Classic Yellow Cake mix with best if used by dates of March 9, 10, 12, and 13, 2019 and the UPC code 644209307494.

Duncan Hines Classic Butter Golden Cake mix with best if used by dates of March 7, 8, and 9, 2019 and the UPC code 644209307593.

Duncan Hines Classic Confetti Cake mix with best if used by dates of March 12, and 13, 2019 and the UPC code 644209414550.

Hi Jami! Wish I could help, but unfortunately, I have zero experience with high altitude baking. My gut is telling me that you’ll probably want to reduce both the amount of cake mix and water at an equal ratio so that the batter doesn’t rise too high. If you test it, please come back and share your results!

Thank you so so much for this recipe. I bought my granddaughter a Easy-Bake oven and was testing out some recipes before I give it to her so she’ll know how to do it and not be frustrated. Been playing all morning with it. And thank you so much for the labels. I also got a Duncan Hines signature lemon and red velvet cake because they didn’t have the chocolate one at Meijer where I shop. Could you please make some labels for the lemon and the red velvet. Thank you thank you so much for these recipes.

Thankyou so much for sharing this! I had the idea of using reg cake mix but googled it and found your blog rather than having to do all the trial and error work because you had already done and shared! I also used the new Duncan hines perfect size for one mug cake pouches, one pouch makes 2 of the cakes!

I’m sure you could do it with the brownie mix, but you might need to play around with the amount of water. I’ve never added mayo to mine, so I can’t help with that. I have a cookie mix recipe that I’m going to share soon, so keep an eye out for that!

Too add, oil you can cut in 1/3C of vegetable shortening til it resembles corn meal then measure and bag just the same. It has a shelf life of 3mos. My 12yr old son and I have test many flavors made from scratch this way and they are truly delicious without the egg. I haven’t tasted any without oil tho. FYI: Almost every Friday Food City has some cake mixes on sale for .79 or .89. and theyre always $1.00 at the DollarTree. Oh how i wish someone would have told my mom this when I was a child and out of Easy Bake mixes.

We too hated the mixes that came with the oven. And we had read about them that they don’t have expiration dates because they don’t spoil! That’s a little scary. So we used the Duncan Hines mixes. With the white cake we added either a tsp of orange, lemon or strawberry jello to the zip lock bags. We also made frosting by using 1/4 cup of powdered sugar and either 1tsp of cocoa powder or 1 tsp flavored jello. Mix with 1T milk to make the frosting. Both girls loved them.

For those of you that think you need egg and oil try a 1/4 tsp of mayonnaise it will give you the same result as egg and oil. As for taste my granddaughter loves them. I even tried the Family Dollar cookie packages and they work great as well. I used the same amount of water and mix as the cake mix.

Thank you so much for this! I used the Betty Crocker brand and found that it did rise as much as yours in the photo but it sitll worked. Those saying that the cake is terrible and must have the egg and oil added may be setting their expectations a little too high. Although this didn’t taste like a made from scratch, perfect cake it was still good and both my kids liked it. And once we add the icing it’ll be even better because icing makes everything yummy lol.
Thanks again!!!